Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 4 eBook

MADAM,

I have the honour of dear Miss Howe’s commands
to acquaint you, without knowing the occasion, ’That
she is excessively concerned for the concern she has
given you in her last letter: and that, if you
will but write to her, under cover as before, she
will have no thoughts of what you are so very apprehensive
about.’—­Yet she bid me write, ’That
if she had bit the least imagination that she can
serve you, and save you,’ those are her words,
’all the censures of the world will be but of
second consideration with her.’ I have
great temptations, on this occasion, to express my
own resentments upon your present state; but not being
fully apprized of what that is—­only conjecturing
from the disturbance upon the mind of the dearest
lady in the world to me, and the most sincere of friends
to you, that that is not altogether so happy as were
to be wished; and being, moreover, forbid to enter
into the cruel subject; I can only offer, as I do,
my best and faithfullest services! and wish you a happy
deliverance from all your troubles. For I am,

Most excellent young lady,
Your faithful and most obedient servant,
CH. Hickman.

LETTER XIII

Mr. Lovelace, toJohnBelford,
Esq. Tuesday, may 2.

Mercury, as the fabulist tells us, having the curiosity
to know the estimation he stood in among mortals,
descended in disguise, and in a statuary’s shop
cheapened a Jupiter, then a Juno, then one, then another,
of the dii majores; and, at last, asked, What price
that same statue of Mercury bore? O Sir, says
the artist, buy one of the others, and I’ll
throw you in that for nothing.

How sheepish must the god of thieves look upon this
rebuff to his vanity!

So thou! a thousand pounds wouldst thou give for the
good opinion of this single lady—­to be
only thought tolerably of, and not quite unworthy of
her conversation, would make thee happy. And
at parting last night, or rather this morning, thou
madest me promise a few lines to Edgware, to let thee
know what she thinks of thee, and of thy brethren.

Thy thousand pounds, Jack, is all thy own: for
most heartily does she dislike ye all—­thee
as much as any of the rest.

I am sorry for it too, as to thy part; for two reasons—­one,
that I think thy motive for thy curiosity was fear
of consciousness: whereas that of the arch-thief
was vanity, intolerable vanity: and he was therefore
justly sent away with a blush upon his cheeks to heaven,
and could not brag—­the other, that I am
afraid, if she dislikes thee, she dislikes me:
for are we not birds of a feather?

I must never talk of reformation, she told me, having
such companions, and taking such delight, as I seemed
to take, in their frothy conversation.

I, no more than you, Jack, imagined she could possibly
like ye: but then, as my friends, I thought a
person of her education would have been more sparing
of her censures.